At least 18 Chinese are dead in China's western Xinjiang province after a Ramadan attack on police

Policemen in riot gear
guard a checkpoint on a road near a courthouse where ethnic
Uighur academic Ilham Tohti's trial is taking place in Urumqi,
Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region September 17,
2014Stringer
China/REUTERS

At least 18 people are dead after ethnic Uighurs attacked police
with knives and bombs at a traffic checkpoint in China's western
Xinjiang region, Radio Free Asia reported on Wednesday.

The attack occurred on Monday in a district of the southern city
of Kashgar, where tensions between Muslim Uighurs that call the
region home and the majority Han Chinese have led to bloodshed in
recent years.

Suspects killed several police officers with knives and bombs
after speeding through a traffic checkpoint in a car in Kashgar's
Tahtakoruk district, U.S.-based Radio Free Asia said, citing
Turghun Memet, an officer at a nearby police station.

Memet tells Radio Free Asia after the suspects sped through the
checkpoint, the vehicle they were in backed up, hitting a police
officer. As other officers rushed to the injured policeman's aid,
"Two other suspects then rushed out of the car, using knives to
attack and kill" them.

The traffic officers who were attacked were not armed. They
reportedly called for backup from the People's Armed Police,
but Memet says shortly after, the attack intensified:

"By the time armed police reached the scene, three more suspects
had arrived by sidecar motorcycle and attacked the checkpoint and
police cars with explosives, killing one regular police officer,
another traffic policeman and one auxiliary officer."

Armed police responded to the attack and killed 15 suspects
"designated as terrorists," Radio Free Asia cited Memet as
saying.

The attack comes at the beginning of the Muslim holy month of
Ramadan, a sensitive time in Xinjiang after an uptick in attacks
over the past three years in which hundreds have died, blamed by
Beijing on Islamist militants.